That raises an interesting idea... why not use the capchas to perform some useful work? Example... display a scanned line of text from a project that needs a large volume of text OCR'd for free/cheap. Compare the texts from several submitters, and assume groups with a high match rate are reading it correctly.
This accomplishes three goals:
- fairly effective capchas
- accomplishes something
- causes OCR quality to improve (via the hard work of the botnet coders)
Not saying the above example is ideal, just trying to illustrate the idea. Take advantage of available resources (be they real people or botnets) and harvest it to accomplish something practical with it.
Only one minor problem with that -- how does they know when the captcha has been entered correctly for the first several users?
Well see that's the point - they should be able to make that version, if they have the permission of the copyright owner. That's the only point I've been arguing... for me, the "as creators intended" argument is worthless, as the consumer can view these things however they choose. Arguing otherwise is like saying that it should be illegal to view a painting through lenses specially tinted to bring out a certain color, just because the artist intended that it be viewed with two eyes. As far as I'm concerned, it's really just a matter of redistributing - and profiting off of - something they don't have the rights to redistribute.
Sure thing, they just resold the original for a higher price than they paid and threw in the edited version for free. You mean the edited version that they can't legally make?
A case can be made that way ( and is, in another thread of this conversation), because morals are quite subjective things. Fortunately, the bulk of my post addressed the legal and copyright aspect, not the moral.
except that the people being sued don't know much about computers. It doesn't take a whole lot of knowledge to realize that if they're downloading all this "free" music, they're also providing it. I'm all in favor of the dumb user excuse, and have often supplied it myself in other circumstances, but give me a break...
But that's not what they were doing. For each DVD that they sold, the consumer would get the Original DVD, and the Edited DVD. When they were renting the DVD, for each DVD that was rented, they had purchased an un-edited DVD that they would hold.
The content producers got their money. It really is exactly as the original poster said. It's like buying a book, blacking out certain sections, and then reselling it. Thanks for clarifying, it's been a while since I read up on the case (probably since when it was first posted here...) Marginally better -- but still, it seems more like it's buying the book, printing up a redacted version of the book under new binding, and selling them both together. It's still violating copyright. The only way I could see them having a leg to stand on is if they gave away the edited version at no charge or profit.
That's a bad analogy. Try purchasing one copy of a book, re-printing it under a new binding with only the content you don't want to censor, then selling it in large quantity -- and see how long you can get away with it.
Let me clarify. I am not against punishing students when they step out of line. Suspension, detention, additional assignments, even failing grades are appropriate. School staff have many tools at their disposal without resorting to a civil lawsuit - which costs everyone both time and money.
Re: Pennsylvania. Fair enough - but in that case, it seems a clear case of crossing the line from childish rantings in a public forum into the realm of "terroristic threats"; and if you really want to put a scare into them, "conspiracy to commit murder".
My point is that ultimately, the punishment should fit the crime. If the crime consists of taking video of a teacher's ass and posting it to youtube; or talking about someone's "fat legs", it merits detention -- and tougher skin on the part of the teacher. On the other hand, if it consists of something that endangers a perason, or would make a reasonable person/feel/ endangered, then it crosses the border into being a criminal matter and should be treated as such.
(For the record, it never would have occurred to me to do any such thing back in my school years. Granted they occurred before the Internet went mainstream, but this behavior is something any decently raised person just "knows better" than to do. )
What's so cool about halting clean dvd edits? Do you find it morally objectionable to remove morally objectionable content from movies?
Ummm... the fact that Clean/Family flix - who held no rights in the movies they were redistributing - was redistributing copyrighted material for money in direct violation of the copyright holders' rights?
If you find the content morally objectionable, how is it more moral to buy an edited version from someone who has no right to sell it? It seems to me that the best thing you can do is vote with your wallet and not buy it.
And if that is too extreme for your tests, I respectfully suggest that you don't see that content as nearly so "objectionable" as you make it out to be.
Wouldn't they be better off releasing a clean version of the movie themselves, and keep the profit? But since they refuse to do this, then I do not think that there is anything wrong with editing a movie to clean it up. Yes, I'm sure they would. But that's their choice -- and they're under no obligation to give away their work for another company to profit off of, if they choose not to do it.
Prohibiting the editing of movies altogether is not the answer.
The courts prohibited only using copyrighted material without permissions, which is after all what copyright is for. Whether the owner of the copyright wishes to allow a company to PAY for the rights to do what Clean Flix wanted to do is entirely up to the owner(s). The court is quite correct in stating that it has no say in it.
For when I must dirty my hands with PHP, I use Visual SlickEdit which has great auto-completion (and many other) facilities for PHP + a ton of other languages. Heck, it was even simple to add autocompletion support for nwscript, the scripting language used by the game neverwinter nights/neverwinter nights 2.
Reading the article, most of the 'pranks' are just juvenile namecalling. If the teachers can't handle that, they're in the wrong profession. More serious are situations such as posting one teacher's personal info (name, phone, address) to a singles web site. Now they are not only going to get unwelcome calls from strangers, but could potentially be at risk as a result of the published information.
Much like anything else, there's a line to be drawn. If someone is harmed or put at risk, then the perpetrators should be punished. If someone's feelings are hurt or they feel embarrassed, they need to get over it.
Not the same thing. This company used his images for profit. What would have been analogous to file sharing might be if the defendant had photocopied the image, put it on his wall for his own personal enjoyment, and given some copies to a few million friends for the same purpose thus ensuring that the photographer received no compensation for his work. Fixed that for ya.
Am I missing something here? The urethra - the delivery mechanism for semen, which carries HIV - is still a direct pipeline, except perhaps to the point of exit where there is a bit of skin. That is not scar tissue whether circumcised or not, as the scar tissue occurs below that point. The semen does not contact the scar tissue on the way out, it's a direct deposit. So to speak. So how would presence or absence of scar tissue have any effect at all? (Just applying some common sense and basic knowledge of anatomy... )
ActiveX is the name for a technology that is used to load plugins (every single browser has a similar technology). Actually, ActiveX is an interface which an application must implement. This is not specific to web browsers at all, as ActiveX can be used (and often are) in any Windows application.
Slashdot Mirror
This accomplishes three goals:
- fairly effective capchas
- accomplishes something
- causes OCR quality to improve (via the hard work of the botnet coders)
Not saying the above example is ideal, just trying to illustrate the idea. Take advantage of available resources (be they real people or botnets) and harvest it to accomplish something practical with it.
Only one minor problem with that -- how does they know when the captcha has been entered correctly for the first several users?
Alright, I'm curious. What were the symptoms of your self-diagnosed depression?
Better, perhaps, to mod GP "flambe"?
A case can be made that way ( and is, in another thread of this conversation), because morals are quite subjective things. Fortunately, the bulk of my post addressed the legal and copyright aspect, not the moral.
The content producers got their money. It really is exactly as the original poster said. It's like buying a book, blacking out certain sections, and then reselling it.
Thanks for clarifying, it's been a while since I read up on the case (probably since when it was first posted here...) Marginally better -- but still, it seems more like it's buying the book, printing up a redacted version of the book under new binding, and selling them both together. It's still violating copyright. The only way I could see them having a leg to stand on is if they gave away the edited version at no charge or profit.
That's a bad analogy. Try purchasing one copy of a book, re-printing it under a new binding with only the content you don't want to censor, then selling it in large quantity -- and see how long you can get away with it.
Re: Pennsylvania. Fair enough - but in that case, it seems a clear case of crossing the line from childish rantings in a public forum into the realm of "terroristic threats"; and if you really want to put a scare into them, "conspiracy to commit murder".
My point is that ultimately, the punishment should fit the crime. If the crime consists of taking video of a teacher's ass and posting it to youtube; or talking about someone's "fat legs", it merits detention -- and tougher skin on the part of the teacher. On the other hand, if it consists of something that endangers a perason, or would make a reasonable person /feel/ endangered, then it crosses the border into being a criminal matter and should be treated as such.
(For the record, it never would have occurred to me to do any such thing back in my school years. Granted they occurred before the Internet went mainstream, but this behavior is something any decently raised person just "knows better" than to do. )
Ummm... the fact that Clean/Family flix - who held no rights in the movies they were redistributing - was redistributing copyrighted material for money in direct violation of the copyright holders' rights?
If you find the content morally objectionable, how is it more moral to buy an edited version from someone who has no right to sell it? It seems to me that the best thing you can do is vote with your wallet and not buy it.
And if that is too extreme for your tests, I respectfully suggest that you don't see that content as nearly so "objectionable" as you make it out to be.
Wouldn't they be better off releasing a clean version of the movie themselves, and keep the profit? But since they refuse to do this, then I do not think that there is anything wrong with editing a movie to clean it up. Yes, I'm sure they would. But that's their choice -- and they're under no obligation to give away their work for another company to profit off of, if they choose not to do it. Prohibiting the editing of movies altogether is not the answer.The courts prohibited only using copyrighted material without permissions, which is after all what copyright is for. Whether the owner of the copyright wishes to allow a company to PAY for the rights to do what Clean Flix wanted to do is entirely up to the owner(s). The court is quite correct in stating that it has no say in it.
Perhaps if learning and using those technologies is 'challenging' to a web developer, that person should be 'developing' a new career.
For when I must dirty my hands with PHP, I use Visual SlickEdit which has great auto-completion (and many other) facilities for PHP + a ton of other languages. Heck, it was even simple to add autocompletion support for nwscript, the scripting language used by the game neverwinter nights/neverwinter nights 2.
Much like anything else, there's a line to be drawn. If someone is harmed or put at risk, then the perpetrators should be punished. If someone's feelings are hurt or they feel embarrassed, they need to get over it.
Feed me, Seymour!
Registering a nick may help with that 'buried' problem...
Am I missing something here? The urethra - the delivery mechanism for semen, which carries HIV - is still a direct pipeline, except perhaps to the point of exit where there is a bit of skin. That is not scar tissue whether circumcised or not, as the scar tissue occurs below that point. The semen does not contact the scar tissue on the way out, it's a direct deposit. So to speak. So how would presence or absence of scar tissue have any effect at all? (Just applying some common sense and basic knowledge of anatomy... )
Fair 'nuff, I shall not be requiring you to turn in your geek license this day.
Meh. Very Large Array by thePowerOfGrayskull! for the win.
AV vendors have been claiming antitrust for eight months. SP1 causes great inconvenience to their customers, what a suspicious coincidence.
Yarrr, evil M$ conspiracy to take over the world with Windoze! Oh, wait. Been there, done that...My ford can flatten your emacs and leave your vi in the dust without leaving second gear...
Dude.... waaaay to much time on that one.
Soooo.... instead of simply making your very valid points, you had to be a jackass about it? Does this make you feel more like a man?